he has no scope for free interpretation; everything is fixed there and he must follow the precedents of the elders. In Turkey there is a chief muftī, called the Sheikh al-Islām, whose office was created by the Ottoman sultan, Mahommed II., in 1453, after the capture of Constantinople. He is, in a sense, the head of the ecclesiastical side of the state, that controlled by canon law; while the grand vizier is at the head of secular matters. Although his powers are delegated by the sultan-caliph, and he is appointed and can be dismissed by him, yet in his fatwā-issuing power he is independent. The sultan may dismiss him before he has a chance to issue a fatwā; but if he once issues it the result is legally automatic, even though it means the deposition of the sultan himself. Thus it was by a fatwā of the Sheikh al-Islām that the sultan Abdul Hamid was deposed.
See Juynboll, De mohammedaansche Wet., 40 sqq.; De Slane’s trans. of Ibn Khaldūn’s Prolégomènes, I. lxxviii. 447 seq.; Turkey in Europe, by “Odysseus,” 131 seq.; Young, Corps de droit ottoman, I. x., 285, 289. (D. B. Ma.)
MUGGLETON, LODOWICKE (1600–1698), English sectarian was born in Bishopsgate Street, London. His father was a farrier, but he himself was bred to be a tailor. In 1651 he began to have revelations, and to proclaim himself and his cousin John Reeve, whose journeyman he was, as the two witnesses mentioned in Rev. xi. 3. In 1652 they put out their “commission book” under the title The Transcendent Spirituall Treatise. An exposition of their doctrines was published in 1656 under the title of The Divine Looking-Glass. Among other views (besides the doctrine of the divine mission of the authors) this work taught that the distinction of the three persons in the Trinity is merely nominal, that God has a real human body, and that He left Elijah as His vicegerent in heaven when He Himself descended to die on the cross. Muggleton’s opinions gained some notable adherents, but also called forth much opposition. In 1653 he was imprisoned for blasphemy, and twice (1660 and 1670) his own followers temporarily repudiated him. His attack on the Quakers drew forth William Penn’s book, The New Witnesses proved old Heretics (1672). In 1677 Muggleton was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted of blasphemy, and fined £500. Reeve died in 1658, but Muggleton survived till 1698.
His collected works, including the posthumous Acts of the Witnesses, were published in 1756; and in 1832 some sixty Muggletonians subscribed to bring out a new edition of The Works of J. Reeve and L. Muggleton (in 3 vols. 4to). Even as late as 1846 The Divine Looking-Glass was reprinted by members of the then almost extinct sect. See A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars (1888).
MUGWUMP, in American political slang, a name applied to any independent voter, and especially to those independents in the Republican party who refused to support James G. Blaine, when nominated by that party for the presidency in 1884; as since adopted in England it usually means one who stays neutral and votes for no party. Originally “mugwump” (mogkiomp) was a North American Indian word, in the Massachusett dialect of the Algonquian, meaning “great man” (mogki, great; omp, man); and in New England it was used of self-conceited politicians.
MUHAMRAH (Mohammerah), a town of Persia, in the province of Arabistan, in 30° 26′ N., 48° 11′ E., on the Hafar canal, which joins the Karun with the Shatt el Arab, and flows into the latter 40 m. above its mouth at Fao and about 20 m. below Basra. It has post and telegraph offices, and a population of about 5000. With the opening of the Karun river, as far as Ahvaz, to international navigation in 1889, Muhamrah acquired greater importance, and its customs, which until then were leased to the governor for £1500 per annum, rose considerably, and paid £8000 until taken over by the central customs department under Belgian officials in 1902. It is estimated that the value of the imports and exports into and from Muhamrah, excluding specie, is about £300,000 per annum, paying customs amounting to about £18,000. Until 1847, when it definitely became Persian territory in accordance with art. ii. of the treaty of Erzerum, Muhamrah was alternately claimed and occupied by Persia and Turkey, its ruler, an Arab sheikh, helping either power as he found it convenient. Since then the governor of the town and adjoining district has been a sheikh of the K’ab or Chaab Arabs, a powerful tribe of the Shi’ah branch of Islam. At the close of the Anglo-Persian campaign in 1857 Muhamrah was taken by a British force.
MÜHLBERG, a town of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, on the left bank of the Elbe, 8 m. below Riesa. Pop. (1905), 3380. It carries on a considerable trade by water in timber and corn. Mühlberg is famous for the victory gained here, on the 24th of April 1547, by the emperor Charles V. over the elector of Saxony, John Frederick.
See Lenz, Die Schlacht bei Mühlberg (Gotha, 1879); and Bertram, Chronik der Stadt Mühlberg (Torgau, 1864).
MUHLENBERG, HENRY MELCHIOR (1711–1787), German-American Lutheran clergyman, was born in Einbeck, Hanover, on the 6th of September 1711. When he was twelve years old his father, a member of the city council, died. The son entered the university of Göttingen in 1735, and his work among the poor of Göttingen led to the establishment of the present orphan house there. In 1738 he went to Halle to finish his theological studies; he was a devoted worker in the Franckesche Stiftung, which later served as a partial model for his great-grandson’s community at St Johnland, Long Island. He was deacon at Grosshennersdorf, in Upper Lusatia, in 1739–1741. In 1742, in reply to a call from the Lutheran churches of Pennsylvania, he went to Philadelphia, and was joined from time to time, especially in 1745, by students from Halle. Muhlenberg occupied himself more particularly with the congregation at New Providence (now Trappe), though he was practically overseer of all the Lutheran churches from New York to Maryland. In 1748 he organized the first Lutheran synod in America. Muhlenberg married in 1745 Anna Maria Weiser, daughter of J. Conrad Weiser, a well-known Indian interpreter, and herself said to have had Indian blood in her veins; by her he had eleven children. Throughout the War of Independence he and his sons (see below) were prominent patriots. He died at Trappe on the 7th of October 1787. The importance of his work in organizing and building up the American Lutheran Church, of which he has been called the Patriarch, can hardly be exaggerated; but his example in preaching in English as well as in German was, unfortunately for the growth of the Lutheran Church, not followed by his immediate successors. He had no sympathy with the Old Lutherans and their strict orthodoxy—on the contrary he was friendly with the Reformed congregations, and with George Whitefield and the Tennents.
See Life and Times by William J. Mann (Philadelphia, 1887).
MUHLENBERG, JOHN PETER GABRIEL (1746–1807), American preacher and soldier, son of H. M. Muhlenberg (q.v.), was born at Trappe, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of October 1746. With his two brothers he was educated in Germany. He entered the Lutheran ministry, had charge of churches at New Germantown and Bedminster, New Jersey, and after 1772 of a church in Woodstock, Virginia, and there in 1775 raised the 8th Virginia (German) regiment, of which he was made colonel; in February 1777 he became a brigadier-general in the Continental Army; and in September 1783 was breveted major-general. He took part in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth, and at Yorktown commanded the first brigade of light infantry. After the war he removed to Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Virginia convention of 1776, was vice-president of the supreme-executive council of Pennsylvania in 1787–1788, and was a representative in Congress in 1789–1791, in 1793–1795, and in 1799–1801. In 1801 he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States Senate, but immediately resigned to become supervisor of revenue for the district of Pennsylvania. He became collector of the port of Philadelphia in 1803. He was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and of James Monroe.
See Life by Henry A. Muhlenburg (Philadelphia, 1849).
His brother, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg (1750–1801), became his father’s assistant in Philadelphia in 1770; was pastor of the Christ (or Swamp) German Lutheran Church of New York City from 1773 to 1776; and in 1777–1779 was assistant to his father at New Hanover. In 1779–1780 he was
